The present invention generally relates to a ground surface treatment apparatus, more particularly to a ground surface treatment apparatus adapted for receipt on a ground ripping tool of a self propelled vehicle such as a road grader or the like.
Numerous soil preparations and ground surface treatments are commonly required during a variety of earth moving operations, such as shoulder maintenance, construction site preparation, paving operations, utility installation, and landscaping, to name but a few. Almost always, the ground surface is modified, as by cutting, filling, scraping, ripping, etc., with quite a variety of machines and or implements available to perform the desired task. Inevitably, the re-contoured or modified ground surface requires some type of surface treatment, such as leveling, debris removal, compacting, etc., whether as a preliminary step in a multi-step ground surface finishing process (e.g., laying a road way), or as an end in itself (i.e., a finished condition).
Unlike the traditional farm tractor which may be equipped or outfitted with what seems to be an infinite number of attachments for completing whatever task a farmer may encounter, individual specialized pieces of equipment and dedicated skilled operators for each are necessary for the highly variable and many tasks encountered during earth moving operations. This greatly reduces the ability to xe2x80x9cmulti-task,xe2x80x9d at least in comparison to the tractor in an agricultural setting, thereby contributing significantly to overall project costs. Although there exists no known single machine capable of accomplishing the many required soil preparations and/or ground surface treatments, a great deal of combined functionality is known for, and available in, commercially available earth moving machines such as crawlers (i.e., a track propelled vehicle), excavators, motor graders, and wheeled tractors.
By way of illustration, broom attachments are known for motor graders (U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,261), as are ripping tools for both crawlers (U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,376) and motor graders (U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,096), and rollers for dump trucks (U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,710), crawlers (U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,544), and motor graders (U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,413), to name but a few. Furthermore, an equal number of hook-ups or linkages are known, and likely available, to secure individual implements, such as blades, scarifiers, rippers, loaders, or power booms, to their carrying vehicles, whether they be those previously noted, or otherwise, with particular emphasis on the efficiency of the mounting/removal procedures.
Although advances have been made so as to reduce the number of machines and/or operators on a job site, heretofore know machines are required to be selectively equipped with one of the many known implements, as by switching out one implement for another, which remains a time and labor intensive operation, typically requiring that such implements be transported to and from the job site, almost always by a vehicle separate from the carrying vehicle. Furthermore, a great many of the implements are unnecessarily cumbersome, having especially large and/or heavy frames for supporting the ground engaging tool either directly or indirectly, as is best exemplified in the case of road packers wherein spaced apart rows of pneumatic tires are supported by more than a single axle. Thus, there remains a need to efficiently offer a variety of ground surface treatments using a single machine, while minimizing the heretofore known burdens associated therewith.
A ground surface treatment apparatus including a frame adapted to be operatively received by a ground ripping attachment of a self propelled vehicle, and a ground engaging implement carried by the frame for treating the ground surface is provided. The apparatus further includes a resiliently responsive linkage interposed between a portion of the frame and a portion of the ground ripping attachment such that the frame is resiliently responsive to ground ripping tool manipulations and ground surface contours.
More specific features and advantages obtained in view of those features will become apparent with reference to the drawing figures and DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION.